Vivado HLS WebPack Installation

This page is a guide on installing Vivado HL WebPack on Linux.

Vivado HL is Xilinx’ FPGA toolchain. It can work with either Verilog or VHDL. It is a large toolchain, and we only use a small fraction of its capabilities. WebPack is the free version of Vivado.

You will need to create an account on the Xilinx website in order to use Vivado.

A new versions of Vivado is released every 6 months or so. Version 2020.1 is known to work. Newer versions are also likely to work, however we recommend using 2020.1 unless you come across a reason not to.

Supported OS

Check whether your OS is supported by looking at Chapter 2 of the Vivado User Guide UG973. If it is supported, then do a Standard GUI Installation. Otherwise, use the Manual Installation.

Standard GUI Installation

From the 2020.1 Download page:

  1. Scroll down to “Vivado Design Suite - HLx Editions - 2020.1 Full Product Installation”.

  2. Download the “Linux Self Extracting Web Installer” to, say, the ~/Downloads folder. If you are not already logged into the Xilinx site, you will now need to create an account and log in.

  3. Run the installer:

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ chmod +x Xilinx_Unified_2020.1_0602_1208_Lin64.bin
$ ./Xilinx_Unified_2020.1_0602_1208_Lin64.bin

If your operating system is not supported you may get an error such as Exception in thread "SPLASH_LOAD_MESSAGE". In that case, try the Manual Installation.

Important: Add the main Vivado binary directory to your PATH, by adding something like this to your .bashrc:

export PATH=/home/<your name>/tools/Xilinx/Vivado/2020.1/bin:$PATH

Manual Installation

From the 2020.1 Download page:

  • Step 1: Scroll down to “Vivado Design Suite - HLx Editions - 2020.1 Full Product Installation”.

  • Step 2: Download the “All OS installer Single-File Download” (35GB). If you are not already logged into the Xilinx site, you will now need to create an account and log in.

  • Step 3: Untar the downloaded file and run xssetup:

$ tar xvzf Xilinx_Unified_2020.1_0602_1208.tar.gz
$ cd Xilinx_Unified_2020.1_0602_1208

# Enter the email address and password for your xilinx.com account
$ ./xsetup -b AuthTokenGen

# This will create configuration file
$ ./xsetup -b ConfigGen
# Choose 2. Vivado, then
# Choose 1. Vivado HL WebPACK

  • Step 4: Edit the created configuration file. Pay particular attention to the Destination directory path and the Modules list

#### Vivado HL WebPACK Install Configuration ####
Edition=Vivado HL WebPACK

Product=Vivado

# Path where Xilinx software will be installed.
Destination=/home/<your user>/tools/Xilinx

# Choose the Products/Devices the you would like to install.
Modules=Virtex UltraScale+ HBM:0,Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC:0,DocNav:1,Kintex UltraScale:0,Zynq-7000:0,Spartan-7:0,System Generator for DSP:0,Artix-7:1,Virtex UltraScale+:0,Kintex-7:0,Kintex UltraScale+:0,Model Composer:0

# Choose the post install scripts you'd like to run as part of the finalization step. Please note that some of these scripts may require user interaction during runtime.
InstallOptions=

## Shortcuts and File associations ##
# Choose whether Start menu/Application menu shortcuts will be created or not.
CreateProgramGroupShortcuts=1

# Choose the name of the Start menu/Application menu shortcut. This setting will be ignored if you choose NOT to create shortcuts.
ProgramGroupFolder=Xilinx Design Tools

# Choose whether shortcuts will be created for All users or just the Current user. Shortcuts can be created for all users only if you run the installer as administrator.
CreateShortcutsForAllUsers=0

# Choose whether shortcuts will be created on the desktop or not.
CreateDesktopShortcuts=1

# Choose whether file associations will be created or not.
CreateFileAssociation=1

# Choose whether disk usage will be optimized (reduced) after installation
EnableDiskUsageOptimization=1

  • Step 5: run the installation.

$ ./xsetup -b Install -c ~/.Xilinx/install_config.txt -a XilinxEULA,3rdPartyEULA,WebTalkTerms

  • Step 6: install drivers

$ cd tools/Xilinx/Vivado/2020.1/data/xicom/cable_drivers/lin64/install_script/install_drivers
$ sudo ./install_drivers

  • Step 7: Add the main Vivado binary directory to your PATH, putting this in your .bashrc file:

export PATH=/home/<your name>/tools/Xilinx/Vivado/2020.1/bin:$PATH

  • Step 8: Enjoy of beverage of your choice. You deserve it. Congrats on getting Vivado installed!

Troubleshooting Vivado

libtinfo.so.5

If you encounter application-specific initialization failed: couldn’t load file “librdi_commontasks.so”: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory, try:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install libtinfo-dev
$ sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.6 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5

Hardware Manager Can’t find the Arty A7

If your hardware manager isn’t seeing your device, try installing the drivers again:

$ cd tools/Xilinx/Vivado/2020.1/data/xicom/cable_drivers/lin64/install_script/install_drivers
$ sudo ./install_drivers